Unveils three-tier connectivity plan for schools

The Jamaican Government has outlined changes to its plans for connecting schools online amid delays that have been encountered.

Daryl Vaz, minister of science, energy and technology, who made the announcement in Parliament on Tuesday (September 28), admitted that the actual connection of schools is not where he would have liked it to be but pointed out that a significant amount of work has been done to put in the infrastructure to allow for connectivity.

He said the harsh reality is that time has caught up with the nation because of a collective failure to make sustained and strategic investments in the country’s fibre optic cable infrastructure that would have allowed connectivity to schools, which is a crucial part of the Government’s COVID-19 response.

Vaz advised Parliament of his ministry’s recent assessment of public school internet service, which highlighted the internet service gaps that exist. Of the 980 public schools, more than 399 have poor internet service and 220 are without access to internet service for varying reasons, chief among them the lack of communication infrastructure in the communities where the schools are located.

“This means that over 600 public schools or three- quarters (3/4) of our student population, estimated to be more than 600,000 students are impacted by poor quality or no internet service,” Vaz said.

As such, the Government has developed a three-tier connectivity plan for schools.

In addition to schools, some 48 places of safety also included in the plan to bring these government institutions online.

Schools barred from negotiating individually with ISP

Vaz announced that schools will be barred from continuing to negotiate individually with internet service providers.

“Instead, schools are grouped based on their enrolment and bandwidth requirements and service providers are required to create a private data network for each group,” he told Parliament.

Each group of schools will be connected to the government’s backbone over which they will get access to the internet and data services. This type of network service gives the Government the ability to share a single source of internet to the various groups of schools and eliminates the need to manage over 900 individual internet service contracts; providing instead for a single internet service contract for all schools.

Vaz contended that, additionally, this process will allow the Government the ability to monitor the performance of each school internet service in real time. Most importantly, the Government will have the ability to centrally filter content to make sure that students are not exposed to illicit and inappropriate material.

Three tiers of the school connectivity plan

The minister sought to describe the three tiers of the school connectivity plan.

Tier 1 involves public schools with enrolment between 100 to 400 students and requiring 10 to 40 megabits per second of bandwidth. A tender is currently out for local ISPs to provide wide area network service (fibre/microwave) for these schools and we are almost at the closing period for bids.

Approximately, 661 schools are a part of this tender. The projection is for implementation to be completed by the end of this school term. Approximately 66,735 students stand to benefit, if all schools are awarded.

Tier 2 covers approximately schools located in rural and deep rural communities with enrolment of up to 400 students requiring 10 to 40 Mbps. These schools are located in communities that lack fibre or microwave communication infrastructure.

The satellite internet service provider is required to provide a private network on which the various groups of schools will access their internet service. A web portal will also be provided to allow the Government to monitor the performance of their internet service in real time.

The bids for the satellite service tender will close in a few days. Implementation is expected by the end of this school term. Approximately 480 public educational institutions are a part of this tender with more than 54,395 students to benefit.

Tier 3 schools are those with enrolment between 500 and 2,000 students and require bandwidth of 50 to 400Mbps. These schools experience some of the greatest difficulties in accessing quality internet service and represent the largest segment of the student population. Some of these schools are paying thousands of US dollars per month with the help of alumni to ensure reliable access to the internet; as bandwidth usage increase for these schools increases on average between 50 per cent to 100 per cent each year.

These schools will now be connected directly to the government’s backbone. These connections will enable upload and down load speeds of 1 Gigabit providing the schools with additional capacity for many years to come.

Vaz stated that once connected, these schools will no longer be required to pay a monthly recurring cost for their internet service.